Institutional Investors

On occasion of the publication of his new gold report (read here), Ronald Stoeferle talked with financial journalist Lars Schall about fundamental gold topics such as: "financial repression"; market interventions; the oil-gold ratio;  the renaissance of gold in finance;  "Exeter’s Pyramid"; and what the true "value" of gold could actually look like. Via Matterhorn Asset Management.

All of the time wasted on firewalls and great deceptions worked in the short term but the height of a fence does nothing to help a horse or a nation which is sick inside them. Europe has vastly overspent and tried their best to whitewash the financials of the countries and the European banks and now, and each quarter out for some time; we are going to see a worsening financial landscape for the European nations and their banks. This will not be Armageddon or the end of the world but it is going to be quite painful and have a decided impact on the United States and perhaps the scaring may be deep. In Europe that have mouthed so much nonsense for such a long period of time that they have come to believe in what they have manufactured. This is not uncommon historically but the depth and breadth of it is without comparison. Germany says one thing to placate France and Italy believes the drivel that is touted by the Netherlands and now Greece wants the ECB to forgive their $238 billion in Greek debts on the basis of a united Europe, which would bankrupt the ECB, and then it becomes clear that someone has to pay for all of this and countries start banging on the doors of the asylum to get out. Listen carefully; the banging has begun and will grow loader and more raucous during the balance of the year.

But please don’t tell me that you are surprised that Barclays was “manipulating” LIBOR.

From bull market gods and goddesses of the 1980s and 1990s, stock analysts now preside over a much more modest kingdom.  Nic Colas, of ConvergEx notes that the world has moved on to new golden calves, from currencies (with great leverage) to exchange traded funds (with generally less volatility) to macro analysts (the current Zeuses and Heras).  This even extends to the world of the retail investor – there are far more Google searches in the U.S. for "Storage auctions" (246,000/month) than for "stock research" (just 33,000/month), and the rate of decline resembles a fast-decaying radioactive particle. With asset price correlations near 90% for a wide range of investment choices, the on-off switch to market direction sits in Washington, Frankfurt, Beijing, and other centers of political and central bank power. Nic believes stock research will make a comeback for both technological (systemically delivering information to algorithmic traders) and cyclical reasons - as old-school stock research, with sector analysts, is ultimately tied to the fortunes of the equity market. And for analysts and stock market investors, that inflection point cannot come too soon.

Game Over for the once high flying hedge fund manager: "“Today’s charges read like the final exam in a graduate school course in how to operate a hedge fund unlawfully,” said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement."

There are roughly 19 million vacant dwellings in the U.S., of which around 4 million are second homes and a million or two are on the market. Let's stipulate that several million more are in areas with very low demand (i.e. few want to live there year-round). Let's also stipulate that several million more are in the "shadow inventory" of homes that are neither on the market nor even officially in the foreclosure pipeline, i.e. zombie homes. Even if you account for 9 million of these homes, that still leaves 10 million vacant dwellings in the U.S. which could be occupied. That means 1 in 12 of all dwellings are vacant. Even if you discount this by half, that still leaves 5 million vacant dwellings that could be occupied. Given that the total rental market is 40 million households, that constitutes a very large inventory of supply that remains untapped. Lastly, it is important to note that the ratio of residents to dwellings is rather low in the U.S., with millions of single-person households and large homes occupied by one or two people. The potential pool of existing homeowners who could enter the "informal" rental market by offering bedrooms, basements and even enclosed garages for rent is extremely large, and that is a difficult-to-count "shadow" inventory of potential rentals.

• German court may delay ESM bailout fund ratification (Reuters)
• New dangers lurk for rudderless Spain (Reuters)
• SEC Said to Depose SAC’s Cohen in Insider-Trading Probe (Bloomberg)
• With Europe broke, Asia is Wall Street's new dumb money: Riskier Bets Pitched To Asia's Rising Rich (WSJ)
• Spain expected to request bank aid after debt test (Reuters)
• Lawmakers Push for Overhaul of IPO Process (WSJ)
• Israel: "all options" open after Iran talks fail (Reuters)
• Canadian housing boom to grind to a halt (Financial Post)
• Italians Dodge Property Tax in Test for Monti’s Austerity (Bloomberg)
• ORCL earnings must have been good: Oracle CEO Ellison to Buy Most of Hawaiian Island Lanai (Bloomberg)

News & headlines from the day

Gold took a tumble for the first time in 7 sessions in Asia as Antonis Samaras, leader of the Greece's New Democracy Party (pro-bailout) was victorious.  Today, Samaras plans to form a coalition with other parties backing the bailout – meaning that Greece’s future in the euro is secure – for now.  Gold’s dip in Asia was thought to be due to profit taking and increased risk appetite after the Greek election. However, this increase in risk appetite has been quite short lived with Spanish and Italian 10 year bonds again coming under pressure resulting in record Spanish yields over 7.13% and Italian 10 year over 6% again. Initial gains in equity markets have subsided and the lessening of risk appetite is seeing gold supported. Greece’s exit from the Eurozone is no longer a short term risk however it remains a real risk as does the risk of financial contagion in the Eurozone due to insolvent banks in Spain, Italy and France.

All you can read.

Lower growth expectations and higher risk premia on peripheral European assets have weighed heavily on the EUR since the sovereign crisis began in late 2009. But, as Goldman's FX anti-guru Thomas Stolper notes, we have not seen evidence of a net capital flight crisis out of the Euro area that would have led to disruptive EUR depreciation (yet). Much of the reasoning for the relative stability is the Target 2 system and the high degree of capital mobility in European capital markets which have enabled the rise in risk aversion to be expressed by internal flows (as well as repatriation). With this weekend's election (and retail FX brokers starting to panic), it is clear that the interruption of these internal channels may well lead to a disorderly capital flight and a full-fledged crisis in flows. Stolper outlines four potential catalysts to trigger this chaos (which is not his base-case 'muddle-through' scenario) as we already noted the huge divergence between implied vols and realized vols indicate the market is starting to price in more extreme scenarios and safe-havens (swissy) are bid.

A land grab shrouded in a banking takeover, wrapped in a financial crisis "rescue." As always, insiders get first dibs.  (And, yes, there is an MF Global connection.)

• Obama Seeking Ally on Europe Finds Merkel a Tough Sell (Bloomberg) - but he has an election to win
• China rate cut sparks fears of grim May data (Reuters)
• China faces stimulus dilemma  (FT)
• Papademos warns of Grexit vortex (FT)
• China’s Shipyards Fail to Win Orders as Greek Owners Shun Loans (Bloomberg)
• Rajoy Holds Bank Talks With EU Leaders as Fitch Downgrades Spain (Bloomberg)
• Capital Rule Is One Size Fits All (WSJ)... now the modest question of where to get the $3.9 trillion in capital
• Merkel Pokes at Cameron With Backing for Two-Speed Europe (Bloomberg)
• City safeguards set Britain at odds with EU (FT)
• Bernanke says Fed to act if Europe crisis deepens (Reuters)

It may feel like I'm out of touch with the precious metals markets to broach the subject of a mania today, but I think the table is being set now for a huge move into gold and silver. There are, however, very valid reasons to reasonably expect a mania in our sector. For one thing, manias have occurred many times before, but the main issue is that a mania in gold and gold stocks is the likely result of the absolute balloon in government debt, deficit spending, and money printing. Saying all that profligacy will go away without inflationary consequences seems naïve or foolish. Inflation may not attract investors to gold and silver as much as force them to it. Now, one could make the argument that any rush into gold and silver will be muted if no one has any savings, especially given that demographers say a quarter of the developed world will soon be retired. But even if individuals are wiped out, the world's money supply isn't getting any smaller, and all that cash has to go somewhere. I wanted to look at cash levels among various investor groups to get a feel for what's out there, as well as how money supply compares to our industry. Data from some institutional investors are hard to come by, but below is a sliver of information about available cash levels. I compared the cash and short-term investments of S&P 500 corporations, along with M1, to gold and silver ETFs, coins, and equities. While the picture might be what you'd expect, the contrast is still rather striking.

From Whitney Tilson's just released letter: "It was an ugly month – our second-worst ever – but for perspective, our fund gave back slightly more than the 12.3% gain of the previous two months. We’re still having a decent year, with a healthy, market-beating gain. In fact, this is the fourth-best start to a year in our fund’s 14-year history." Is that so? May one inquire, in the aftermath of the JPM CIO scandal, does T2 mark the bulk of their positions, which as Zero Hedge disclosed recently are call options, based on market, or based on magical bid/asks, to be made up on the go (as in JPM'scase)? That's right - a hedge fund which "invests" in theta. Is there any wonder why the "hedge fund" with about $200 million in actual stock-based AUM (the balance being calls and warrants), may be the first one with a negative Sharpe ratio? For a visual summary of why LPs (aside from friends and family of course) in T2 are singlehandedly propping up the bottom line of Dramamine, see the chart below.